YOU'RE A BRUTE
Carolyn June went directly to her room when she reached the house. She
wished to investigate the feeling of looseness at her knee. The satin
band that belonged there was gone. She felt her cheeks grow hot.
Doubtless she had lost it at the corral--the Ramblin' Kid would pick it
up! The thought tormented her. Once more she wanted to swear vigorously
and with extreme earnestness. Instead she--laughed! It was all so
absurd. The strange interest this rough cowboy inspired in her; the
confusion she felt when he had spoken to her--no man among all the
clever, carefully groomed, ultra-sophisticated suitors she had left in
Hartville ever stirred her emotions as had the Ramblin' Kid with a few
drawling words and one long look from his black, inscrutable eyes. That
look! She had the feeling, someway, that her whole soul was naked before
it. She was almost afraid of him. It was silly! She detested
him--or--anyway, he needed punishment! No, he wasn't worth it! He was
only an ignorant rider of the range--why trouble at all about him?
Quickly changing her dress for a riding suit of khaki--the skirt
sensibly divided--and the morning slippers for stout, tan, laced boots,
she stepped into the front room. Ophelia was in her own room dressing to
go to town. Carolyn June heard voices in the kitchen. Sing Pete's shrill
chatter mingled with an occasional slow word from the Ramblin' Kid.
Thought of the garter she had lost flashed into her mind. Perhaps the
cowboy had not found it. She would run out to the corral and see.
Passing quickly out the front way Carolyn June hastened again toward the
circular corral. Old Heck and Parker were at the garage getting the car
ready for the drive to Eagle Butte; Pedro and Chuck were riding across
the valley toward the upper pasture. The other cowboys saddled their
horses near the barn.
As she walked, Carolyn June scanned the ground. At the corral she looked
carefully where she had been standing. Her search was fruitless. She
smiled queerly. Again she glanced at the Gold Dust maverick.
"You darling," she whispered, "I am going to have you--I am--I
absolutely am!"
Turning, her eyes rested on the saddle, chaps and riding gear lying in
the shed where the Ramblin' Kid had slept. Carolyn June stepped close to
the outfit.
"I have a notion to--to spit on you!" she said vehemently, "or kick--"
but she didn't finish the sentence. One tan shoe had been drawn back as
if to be swung viciously at the inoffensive pile of riding gear; it
paused, suspended, then gently, almost caressingly, pushed the leather
chaps which suddenly seemed to Carolyn June to look limp and worn and
pathetically tired.
As Carolyn June returned to the house Parker drove the car around to the
front; Old Heck joined the cowboys, already mounting their bronchos, and
with them rode down the lane in the direction of the lower field. Skinny
came out of the barn, leading Pie Face and Old Blue. He left the horses
standing and at the back-yard gate overtook Carolyn June. As they
stepped inside the yard the Ramblin' Kid appeared at the kitchen door.
"There's the Ramblin' Kid now," Skinny said as they approached. "Hello,
Kid," he continued, "I see you got the filly--Excuse me, I guess you
folks ain't acquainted."
Haltingly he introduced them.
Without the flicker of an eyelid the Ramblin' Kid looked into the eyes
of Carolyn June. He had seen her coming from the corral and guessed
correctly the reason for her second visit to the enclosure. Indeed at
that moment his hand was in his pocket toying with the delicate souvenir
for which she had gone to search. Yet his face was utterly without
emotion as he lifted his hat and stood aside, acknowledging with formal
words the introduction. "It's sure a surprisin' day an' pleasant--" he
finished, emphasizing "surprisin'" and "pleasant" till Carolyn June
could have sworn there was a veiled taunt in the words he spoke.
She was equally calm. Smiling sweetly and with not a hint of a previous
meeting she said: "I think I have heard of the Ramblin' Kid." Pausing a
moment: "It's always peaceful after a storm!" she added enigmatically.
And the Ramblin' Kid, as Skinny and the girl passed around to the front
of the house, knew that Carolyn June had hurled a lance!
"A natural born heart-breaker," he said to himself as he went toward the
bunk-house, "a genuine, full-grown vampire, part intentional an' part
because it's in her--but she's a pure-bred--" He grew pensive and
silent, a look of gentleness came to his face, followed quickly by an
expression of extreme humility. "Oh, hell," he exclaimed aloud, "what's
th' use!" Entering the building the Ramblin' Kid seated himself at the
table at the end of the room. He pulled the pink satin elastic from his
pocket and gazed at it, rubbing the soft fabric tenderly with the end of
his thumb. His eyes lighted suddenly with anger and contempt. He threw
the band violently across the room into a corner. "I wasn't raised to
associate with luxuries like that!" he exclaimed with mingled bitterness
and scorn, "--a damned ign'rant cow-puncher dreamin' dreams about an
angel!" he finished with a harsh laugh. For a while he sat silent,
gazing down at the table. Then he got up, went over and lifted the
garter from where it had fallen and replaced it in his pocket. "Oh,
well," he chuckled less bitterly and whimsically added, "--any idiot can
smile at th' mornin' star even if th' darned thing is beyond his reach!
Besides, she don't need to ever know--" Leaving the bunk-house he went
toward the circular corral.
Parker climbed from the car and entered the house, asking if Ophelia was
ready.
"In just a moment!" the widow called from her room.
"What are you and me going to do?" Skinny asked Carolyn June as they
stepped on to the porch, "take a ride?"
"On 'Old Blue'?" Carolyn June questioned scornfully, then, with
resignation, as they went inside the house: "Oh, well--I suppose, after
a while. I have some letters to write now," and she entered her room
leaving Skinny standing perplexed by her varying moods. He looked
foolishly at Parker a moment. Going to the graphophone he put on a
record--
"_I'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air_!"
wailed disconsolately through the house.
"Good heavens," Carolyn June called, "do you blow bubbles this early in
the morning?"
"Don't you like it?" Skinny asked soberly. "I thought that was a pretty
good tune."
"I'm crazy about it!" Carolyn June answered sarcastically. "There and
then, but not here and now--"
"Where and when?" Skinny queried innocently.
"In the valley of the moon at the end of a perfect day!" she laughed
back. "--Forgive me, I couldn't help it!"
"What does she mean?" Skinny asked Parker in a whisper. "Is she making
fun of me?"
"No, you blamed fool," Parker replied, "she feels good and is just
joking--"
Skinny brightened up immediately.
"That's a good one," he called to Carolyn June with a snicker; "I never
thought of it before!"
A ripple of laughter came from Carolyn June's room.
"Really, I don't mind," she said; "play _Bubbles_ as much as you like--I
think it's rather soothing, but truly I must write my letters now so
Ophelia can take them to town."
Half an hour later Ophelia appeared dressed for the drive to Eagle
Butte. Carolyn June and Skinny went out on the front porch and watched
the widow and Parker climb into the Clagstone "Six." As Parker started
the engine Skinny suddenly called to him. Parker sat with his foot on
the clutch while Skinny hurried out to the car.
"What do you want?" he asked impatiently, "We've got to be going!"
"Lean over here," Skinny said, his face flushing scarlet, "I want to
tell you something."
"Well?"
"Stop at the Golden Rule and get me a white shirt size number fifteen
and--a purple necktie if they've got any!" Skinny whispered.
Ophelia heard and choked back a laugh.
"Thunderation, he's plumb locoed!" Parker exclaimed, as he jammed the
clutch into gear and the car sprang forward.
"Don't forget it, Parker," Skinny called earnestly, "I actually need
it!"
Carolyn June and Skinny stood on the porch and watched the car climb the
grade and out on to the bench. The storm of the night before had washed
the earth clean and cooled the air. A faint after-breeze fanned the
tree-tops. The Costejo peaks stood out, with stereoscopical clearness,
against a cloudless sky. The day was a challenge to one who loved the
open.
"You may saddle 'Old Blue,'" Carolyn June said to Skinny. "--I'll see if
I can 'stick on him' long enough to ride as far as the river!"
"He's already saddled," Skinny replied, "him and Old Pie Face both."
"Man, dear," she cried in mock misunderstanding, "you surely are not
expecting me to ride the two of them at once!"
"No," he answered meekly, "Old Pie Face is my horse, I'm going to ride
him and go with you."
"Indeed!" she exclaimed, then laughing mischievously. "Oh,
certainly--that's a good one--I hadn't thought of it before!"
"Don't you want me to go?" Skinny asked doubtfully.
"Surely. I should be utterly unhappy if you didn't--I'll get my hat."
"Blamed if I can figure her out," Skinny said to himself as Carolyn June
ran lightly into the house. "She keeps a feller freezing to death and
burning up all at once--sort of in heaven and hell both mixed together."
A white, medium-brimmed felt hat was set jauntily on the fluffy brown
hair when she reappeared. Skinny's heart leaped hungrily. Carolyn June
was a picture of perfect physical fitness. The cowboy silently wondered
how long he could keep from making "a complete, triple-expansion, darned
fool of himself!"
"I'm glad you want me to go," he said, renewing the conversation as they
started around the house, "because I wanted to and, well, anyhow it's my
job--"
"What do you mean 'your job'?" Carblyn June asked quickly.
Skinny was stricken silent. He realized he was on dangerous ground. He
wasn't sure it would be wise to tell her what he meant. Someway he felt
Carolyn June would resent it if she knew he was drawing wages for
acting the lover to her. It seemed wholly impossible for him, just at
that moment, to explain that, although Old Heck was paying him ten
dollars a month extra salary to court, temporarily, his attractive
niece, he, Skinny Rawlins, would personally be overjoyed to reverse the
order and give his entire income, adding a bonus as well, for the
privilege of continuing indefinitely and of his own choice the more than
pleasant employment. Yet this was the literal truth, so quickly had his
susceptible heart yielded to the charms of the girl. But he dared not
try to tell her. He knew the words would not come and if they did he
would probably choke on them and she, not believing the truth, would
detest him. Skinny had heard of men who courted girls of wealth to win
their money and with sincere contempt he despised these degenerates of
his sex. Now, suddenly, he felt that he himself was in their class. The
thought made him sick, actually caused his stomach to quiver with a sort
of nausea.
"Skinny Rawlins," Carolyn June said sternly, stopping and looking
straight at the confused and mentally tortured cowboy, "tell me--and
don't lie--what you meant when you said to go with me was 'your job!'"
Skinny raised his eyes; in them was piteous appeal.
"I meant--I--" he hesitated.
"Tell me the truth," she ordered relentlessly, "or I'll--I'll--do
something awful!"
"I meant it was my job--" suddenly inspired, he blurted out, "to ride
Old Pie Face. He's--he's dangerous and has to be rode every so often to
keep him from getting worse and to-day's the day to ride him!"
"Skinny," Carolyn June spoke gently, "I feel sorry for you. I want to
like you and I'm disappointed. It breaks my heart to say it but you are
a liar--you're just a common double dashed liar--like Uncle Josiah was
when he sent that telegram saying there was smallpox at the Quarter
Circle KT--"
"Am I?" Skinny asked humbly.
"You are," she retorted impatiently, "and you know it--"
"Do I?" as if dazed.
"You do, and did all the time--"
"Did I?" he felt like a parrot.
"You did!" Carolyn June snapped. "Good heavens," she continued, "why do
men think they have to lie to women? Common sense and experience ought
to teach them they can never fool them long--I hoped out here in the big
West I would find one man who wouldn't lie--"
"Th' Ramblin' Kid won't," Skinny said as if suddenly struck by a bright
thought, "--he wouldn't lie to you!"
Carolyn June laughed scornfully.
"Oh, yes he would," she declared, "all of them do--every last one of
the poor frail"--contemptuously--"turtles!"
"But th' Ramblin' Kid wouldn't," Skinny persisted; "he won't lie to
anybody."
"Not even to a woman?" she questioned incredulously.
"No," he answered positively, "I'm sure he wouldn't."
"And why wouldn't he?" she asked.
"Well," Skinny replied, "for one thing he don't give a darn. Th'
Ramblin' Kid don't care what anybody, man, woman or anything else thinks
about him or whether they like what he says or not so there ain't any
use of him lying. Maybe he wouldn't tell what was in his mind unless you
asked him, but if you did ask him he'd say what it was whether he
thought it satisfied you or not. He's funny that way. He just naturally
don't seem to be built for telling lies and he wouldn't do it--"
"Oh, Skinny, poor simple Skinny!" Carolyn June laughed. "You don't know
men--men when they're dealing with women! Through all the unnamed years
of my life I've never found one man who was absolutely truthful when
talking with a 'female.' They think they have to lie to women. They do
it either to keep from hurting them--or else they do it intentionally
for the purpose of hurting them, one or the other! And they are so
stupid! No man can hide anything long from a woman--"
Reaching over she jerked a spray of tiny roses from the rambler at the
window near which they were standing; tapping the blossoms against her
lips, beginning to smile whimsically, she continued: "Why, I can almost
read your own thoughts right now! If I wanted to I could tell you more
about what is in your mind than you yourself could tell--"
"Could you?" Skinny said, a guilty look coming in his eyes.
"For one thing," Carolyn June went on, ignoring the inane question, "you
are in love--"
"I ain't!" the over-hasty denial slipped from his lips unintentionally.
"Lie!" she laughed, "you can't help telling 'em, can you? And you are
thinking--" She paused while her eyes rested demurely on the roses in
her hand.
"What am I thinking?" Skinny asked breathlessly.
Before she could reply an agonized spitting, yowling and hissing,
accompanied by the rattle of tin, came from behind the kitchen. "What's
that?" Carolyn June cried half frightened at the instant a yellow house
cat, his head fastened in an old tomato can, came bouncing backward,
clawing and scratching, from around the corner.
"Gee whiz!" Skinny exclaimed, "it's that darned cat again--Sing Pete
goes and dabs butter in the bottoms of the cans and the fool cat sticks
his head in trying to lick it out and gets fastened. It looks like the
blamed idiot would learn sometime. It's what I call a rotten joke
anyhow!"
Sing Pete appeared at the kitchen door cackling with fiendish joy at the
success of his ruse.
Carolyn June stared, apparently stricken dumb by the antics of the
struggling animal.
"Sun-fish! Go to it--you poor deluded son-of-sorrow!" The Ramblin' Kid,
who, unnoticed by Carolyn June and Skinny, at that moment had come from
the corral and stood leaning against the fence, chuckled half pityingly,
yet making no move toward the creature.
"Catch him and take it off," Carolyn June cried, "it's hurting him!"
Skinny started toward the rapidly gyrating jumble of claws, can and cat.
"I will if the darn' thing'll hold still a minute!" he said.
Carolyn June looked at the Ramblin' Kid, still leaning against the fence
watching the cat's contortions.
"Why don't you help him?" she asked impatiently. "Skinny can't do it
alone--can't you see it's choking?"
"No, he's not choking," the Ramblin' Kid replied without moving from
where he stood, "--he's sufferin' some, but he ain't chokin'. He's got
quite a lot of wind yet an' is gettin' some valuable experience. That
cat's what I call a genuine acrobat!" he mused as the terrified
creature leaped frantically in the air and somersaulted backward,
striking and clawing desperately to free itself of the can tightly
wedged on its head.
Carolyn June was accustomed to obedience from men creatures. The
Ramblin' Kid's indifference to her request, together with his apparent
cruelty in refusing to aid in relieving the cat from its torturing
dilemma, angered and piqued the girl.
"Help Skinny take it off, I tell you!" she repeated, "haven't you a
spark of sympathy--"
The Ramblin' Kid resented her tone and detected as well the note of
wounded pride. Instinctively he felt that at that instant the cat, with
Carolyn June, had become a secondary consideration.
"Well, some, I reckon," he answered, speaking deliberately, "generally a
little, but right now darned little for that old yaller cat. I figure
he's a plumb free moral agent," he continued as if speaking to himself;
"he got his head in that can on his own hook an' it's up to him to get
it out or let it stay in _this time_, just as he pleases--"
"But Sing Pete put butter in the can!" Carolyn June said, arguing.
"He's done it before," the Ramblin' Kid answered with a glance at the
Chinese cook still gleefully enjoying the results of his cruel joke. "He
won't no more. But that don't make no difference," he laughed, "th'
darn' cat hadn't ought to have yielded to temptation!"
"You're a brute!" she exclaimed passionately, "--an ignorant, savage,
stupid brute--" The harsh words sprang from the lips of Carolyn June
before she thought. The Ramblin' Kid flinched involuntarily as if he had
been struck full in the face. A look came in his eyes that almost made
her regret what she had said.
"I reckon I am," he replied, gazing steadily at her without feeling or
resentment and speaking slowly, "yes, I'm an 'ign'rant, savage, stupid
brute,'" deliberately accenting each word as he repeated the stinging
phrase, "--but--what's the use?" he finished with a mirthless laugh.
"Anyhow," he added, glancing again at the cat and Skinny's futile
efforts to catch it, "I ain't interferin' this time, at least, with that
damned cat!"
Carolyn June knew she had hurt with her unintentionally cruel words. For
an instant there was a humane impulse to temper their severity.
"I--I--didn't--" she started to say, but the Ramblin' Kid had turned
and, ignoring the cat, Skinny and herself, was leaning on the fence with
his back to her, looking off across the valley, apparently lost in
thought. She did not finish the sentence.
The cat bucked its way to the fence. As it went under the wire the can
caught on a barb of the lower strand. Jerking furiously, the animal
freed itself from the can, leaving splotches of hair and hide on the
ragged edges of tin. Still spitting and clawing, with its tail standing
out like an enormous yellow plume, it dashed toward the barn, eager to
put distance between itself and the thing that had been torturing it.
"Gosh a'mighty," Skinny said, sweating with the exertion and the
excitement of trying to catch the cat, "it'll be noon before we get
started for that ride!"
"We'll go now," Carolyn June answered, "--before some other horrible
thing occurs."
"We're going over to the river and maybe out on the sand-hills a ways,"
Skinny casually remarked to the Ramblin' Kid as Carolyn June and he
passed through the gate. "Oh, yes," he added, "Chuck said tell you he
took your rope--there was a weak spot in his and he didn't get it fixed
yesterday!"
The Ramblin' Kid did not answer.
Skinny had been wrong about the Ramblin' Kid not caring what any one
thought of him. He was supersensitive of his roughness, his lack of
education and conscious crudeness, and the words of Carolyn June were
still in his mind. When Skinny and the girl were going toward their
horses the Ramblin' Kid turned and entered the gate. Sing Pete was still
at the kitchen door.
The Ramblin' Kid stepped up to him.
"You damned yellow heathen," he said in a level voice, "if you ever play
that trick on that cat again th' Quarter Circle KT will be shy a cook
an' your ghost'll be headin' pronto for China!"
Without waiting for a reply he went back to the gate and watched Skinny
and Carolyn June ride down the lane. The deftness and skill with which
the girl handled the horse she rode forced a smile of admiration to the
lips of the Ramblin' Kid. She sat close in the saddle and a glance
showed she was a born master of horses. "She's a wonder," he said to
himself, "a teetotal wonder--" A shade of melancholy passed over his
face. "An ign'rant, savage, stupid brute!" he murmured bitterly, "well,
I reckon she was right--Hell!" he exclaimed aloud, "I wonder if
Skinny'll remember about that upper crossin' bein' dang'rous with
quicksand after the rain--Guess he did," he finished as the two riders
turned to the right toward the lower and more distant river ford and
disappeared among the willows and cottonwood trees that fringed the
Cimarron.